


You gave me home and I lost myself

by Caivallon



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, M/M, Summer Love, Summer Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-07 01:18:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15897975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caivallon/pseuds/Caivallon
Summary: But it was the other guy that Jonny couldn’t take his eyes from, not even while he helped the others, mixed their smoothies and plated their sandwiches. Maybe because he stood out against the others: blond and less tanned. Maybe because he was the only one that took his sunglasses off.The guy was not the most attractive man Jonny has ever seen or flirted or even slept with...but there was something about him, that he couldn’t put his finger on but made his stomach tingle.





	You gave me home and I lost myself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OldLace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldLace/gifts).



> Written for the [**1988 trope bingo** ](https://ablackhawkssummer.tumblr.com/).
> 
> The lovely [ **OldLace** ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldLace) did a quick but amazing beta job, thank you so much again! All mistakes that may still remain are mine alone, she has nothing to do with them. 
> 
> I hope you like it. 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://de.tinypic.com?ref=16ie0ee)  
> 

**You gave me home and I lost myself**

 

Jonny could immediately see that the three guys entering his little shop were Americans, even before one of them opened his mouth. They could also be Brits but there was something distinguishably American in the way they were dressed and looked around the small room with his wooden counter, the colourful collection of old stools and the crates with various fruits and vegetables hanging on the wall.

They all wore ridiculous floral shirts and shorts, flip flops and none of them bothered to take off the sunglasses. 

It was a little guessing game he used to play with Emilia when they worked together on the weekends. 

Today was a Tuesday and he was alone, but he still mentally added a point on their invisible scoring list, when one of them greeted him in a noticeable southern drawl when he stepped closer to read the chalkboard behind Jonny. 

He was tall, dark and handsome, just like one of the others. Both with soft looking luscious hair, wide shoulders and slight stubble on their cheeks. Both objectively more attractive than the last guy. 

But it was the other guy that Jonny couldn’t take his eyes from, not even while he helped the others, mixed their smoothies and plated their sandwiches. Maybe because he stood out against the others: blond and less tanned. Maybe because he was the only one that took his sunglasses off.

The guy was not the most attractive man Jonny has ever seen or flirted or even slept with...but there was something about him, that he couldn’t put his finger on but made his stomach tingle as he watched him staring at the display of sandwiches and wraps in Jonny’s counter. 

Everything about him seemed so contradictory. 

How his lashes would flutter whenever he raised his eyes to meet Jonny’s, while he displayed a cocky grin, that made his dimples pop. It looked teasing and awkward at the same time, confident and insecure as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other–every few seconds checking if Jonny still watched him. 

Blondie’s hands were always moving. Either fiddling with the sunglasses or rubbing over his neck and arms, that were pale and slightly freckled, just like his nose and cheekbones. But the most captivating thing about him were his eyes: bluer than blue. And his mouth: chapped and bruised but still so damn soft that Jonny wanted to bite and lick them just like blondie always did. 

That Jonny had to pull himself together. 

“Have you decided?” 

(Again the lashes, too dark, too long. Fascinating.)

“Not yet, everything looks so delicious.” 

(Again the smile; dimpled perfection that made something in Jonny’s stomach curl.)

“I want to try everything.” This time he met Jonny’s gaze, didn’t avert his eyes. Those eyes that were so damn blue. This time he licked his bottom lip, as if...as if Jonny was the most delicious thing in the whole store. And he didn’t even have the decency to blush while he plucked Jonny’s heart right out of his chest. 

“You...can. You can try _everything_ you see and like.” 

“Everything? Really?” Blondie lifted his eyebrows, grinned. 

It was actually Jonny that blushed, who stumbled over his words. Who felt awkward when the blue eyes wandered all over his body; down and upwards again until they met his own. But it didn’t stop him from leaning over the counter, gesturing to blondie to step closer so that he could whisper in his ear. 

“Everything.” He confirmed.

“Sounds good.” (Again the tongue, this time biting down on that bottom lip, that looked already red and so plush that Jonny wondered how often he did that, and what sounds he would make if Jonny would do it.)

“But since I obviously can’t have everything right now, I want to try your favorites. I trust you.” 

“Good choice.” Jonny nodded, whispered it in blondie’s ear. There were freckles, too and he wanted to taste them. Thought about tasting them, tracing them with his tongue, licking over them and then draw a path towards the cheekbones, kissing the upturned nose and finishing with that damn fuckable mouth, that would taste of mango and mint and cinnamon after he drank Jonny’s favorite smoothie.

His whole body tingled while he prepared the drink, cut the vegetables for his special summer roll. Feeling the blue eyes watching his hands, _watching him_ was thrilling and his skin burned as he handed over the plate with a smirk. 

“200 baht, please.” 

“I thought it was on the house.” Blondie actually managed to pout. 

“It’s only on the house if I get something in return, babe. I’m running a business here.” 

Blondie gave him some bills, but didn’t stop pouting until he spotted the phone number Jonny had written down on his napkin. 

The blinding smile was worth way more than two hundred baht. 

__

// You said I could try everything? //

// Yeah. //

// Because I want to. Try everything. //

// I close at 8. //

__

It had been a slow day, one of those that Jonny normally would have used to go through his storage room and make order lists, wipe out the fridges or try new recipes. On that day he was too restless, almost nervous–something he didn’t know from himself because there was nothing to be excited about: just a hookup, a one night stand with an American tourist he would never see again after he’d left the island. 

And blondie would leave. Koh Tao was too small and too quiet: lesser clubs, lesser parties than the other neighboring islands. One of the reasons Jonny chose it. 

But that afternoon he found himself staring at his phone or checking for new messages whenever he had some spare minutes. Thinking about the guy’s dimples, his upturned nose and the unruly strands of dirty blond hair that he had constantly tried to tuck behind his ear without much success. 

Maybe it had been too long since the last time Jonny had sex. Maybe it had been too long that he met someone that intriguing and teasing. 

Blondie never answered to Jonny’s last message, never told him if he’d be there. 

But he was. 

When Jonny stepped outside to stack up the chairs, close the umbrellas and clean up the deck he spotted him: sitting on the small wall that, bare feet dangling into the sand, eyes closed, basking in the evening sun, that turned his skin golden.

(The relief that he suddenly felt almost startled him.)

When Jonny finished wiping down the counter a last time and started to switch off the fan and the lights, he watched him: the little smile, the hand brushing through the sweaty curls in the neck.

(The thrill that accelerated his heart almost frightened him.)

When Jonny grabbed the bag with the leftovers that he usually gave to the old homeless man, that sat at the street corner and locked the turquoise door of the little, two hands reached around him and covered his eyes. Warm and strong and very pale. And then a scent of sunscreen, salt and summer engulfed him and Jonny could feel his knees trembling while blondie pressed himself against his back. Kissed his neck, licked over his throat, nicked his earlobe. 

“I can’t wait to try everything.” 

(He was hard. And Jonny couldn't wait to get him home and into his bed.) 

__

That was almost four weeks ago and now Patrick is living in his house, moved in three days after they barely made it to Jonny’s place dressed, stumbled through the door and fucked on the rackety kitchen table like teenagers. Fucked on the old rug in front of the couch. Fucked in the tiny shower, bodies twisted awkwardly because the water boiler was pressing into his shoulder.

After Jonny came over Patrick’s face, over his belly and his back. 

Now Patrick is sleeping next to him, dressed in Jonny’s old Jets shirt and his boxers because they have been too lazy and too busy to do laundry. 

Now Patrick is living in Jonny’s apartment, buying groceries, cooking him dinner and picking up the dirty clothes that he’s always scattering everywhere. 

Now Patrick is in Jonny’s life. And it’s strange. 

Because he doesn’t _mind_ it. Because he _likes_ it even. 

The warmth of the body beside him when he wakes up in the morning, the sound of clumsy feet padding into the kitchen, off to make coffee. The additional clothes in his closet, getting mixed up with his own, Patrick’s scent still clinging to the ones he borrowed, that Jonny can smell Patrick on him as he works around in his shop. The soft tunes of a radio playing when he gets home in the evening, sometimes finding Patrick leaning against the kitchen counter, book in his hands, lazily stirring the simple pasta dish while his lips hum to the music; sometimes looking for Patrick until he finds him on the porch, dozing in the hammock, pineapple gin next to him, eyelids heavy while he gazes up at Jonny, waiting for his kiss. Sometimes they go out to the clubs, or to the beach where they swim naked in the lukewarm water, their laughter mixing with the calming sounds of the lapping waves. Sometimes they stay in, lying in the darkness and talking for hours about studying, working, traveling. About their past, their present and everything in between. The reasons why Jonny dropped out of school and fled his hometown and the narrow-minded people living in it. Patrick’s fascination with numbers, their logic, their simplicity, their omnipresence in daily life. 

They talk about their dreams, the ones they used to have, the ones they lost, the ones they can still make true. 

There are books everywhere now: on the kitchen table, on the chair serving as his nightstand, on the shelf in the bathroom, on the railing of the porch. There are blond hairs in the sink, cinnamon toothpaste on the self and sand on the tiles dragged in from the beach. There is coke and gin in his fridge, Cap’n Crunch in the cabinets and peanut butter on the counter. 

His apartment is no longer his apartment. It’s Patrick’s and his apartment. It’s _home_. In a way it has never been before. And Jonny loves it. 

__

Jonny usually doesn’t do relationships. 

They are complicated. They are stressful. And they are constricting. 

So he gave up on them after his last breakup, when he packed what little stuff he possessed into three storage boxes and a backpack, before he fled the narrow-minded town that had been his home for so much longer than he wanted. 

He never looked back once. Not as he left his parents’ house, not as the train pulled from the station. Not as the plane lifted from the ground to bring him to Asia where he spent the next three years traveling India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Indonesia, working in coffee shops, restaurants or hotels, as a dive instructor, a bike messenger or a travel guide before he had saved enough money to open his own shop. He made friends, had coworkers, travel companions, one night stands and short affairs–but never for as long as to call it relationship, always moved on before it could become one.

It was easy. It was fun. It was freedom. 

It was lonely. ~~He was lonely~~.

Something he only realized now, as he watches Patrick’s sleeping body next to him. Skin pale in the moonlight, even more pale than at daylight, almost gleaming white and immaculate–freckles and moles invisible. Face turned towards him, relaxed and soft, mouth slightly parted, lashes stunningly long and dark. Hair washed out from the sun and the sea; messier and blonder, than two weeks ago when he stepped into Jonny’s little fruit and juice bar for the first time. 

He radiates an aura of calmness and trust that Jonny can’t help but be drawn to. A purity that is enchanting and magical. 

Jonny never had anything like this and he wants to drown in it. In Patrick. 

__

He used to _like_ lonely. 

He used to like the silence in his apartment, the coolness of the sheets in his bed, the freedom of doing whenever whatever he liked.

But now it scares him. 

The idea of coming home to the once so familiar quietness. Of not stumbling over flip flops, to a clean kitchen table not covered in sheets of paper from Patrick’s master thesis. Of falling asleep without the warm body next to him. 

And this scares him even more. 

__

“Ryan and Vinnie are coming back from Koh Phangan tomorrow.” Patrick says. 

It’s the first thing he says after they finished dinner and Jonny’s heart stutters. They haven’t talked about this. They haven’t talked about anything. But now he wants to. And doesn’t want to. Doesn’t know what he wants.

So he stays silent. Waits. 

“They want to stay for one night at the hostel and then move on like we planned.” 

(Before Patrick changed his plans and decided to stay with Jonny while the others went to the full moon party on Koh Phangan, to visit the other islands.) 

“Manila, Palawan, home.”

 _Home_. 

(A word that has lost all meaning to Jonny. Until two weeks ago.)

‘ _You have a home. This is home. You are home_.’ He wants to say. But the words don’t come out. So he only nods. What can he say, honestly?

“Okay?” 

“Okay.” Patrick looks at him, fork scratching over porcelain; a sound that makes Jonny shiver–although not as much as the emotions and the hurt in those blue eyes. A gaze that runs through his body like lightning, that startles him so much he almost jumps to his feet, stumbles over to the sink. Everything is spinning around him, the colours have shifted and he feels like he has to throw up.

 _Not okay_. 

He doesn’t throw up. 

But maybe that’s only because there is suddenly a cool and calming hand on his neck, and another combing through his hair. Lips that whisper into his ear, before pressing tiny kisses to his cheeks and temporals, on his throat and shoulder blades. 

“Are you okay?” 

No. He _isn’t_.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” (Of course, why wouldn’t he?) 

“Let me do the dishes later, let’s go outside.” 

Patrick’s voice is gentle, patient. His movements even more so, as he leads Jonny to the porch, pushes him into the hammock. Yet he’s gone before Jonny can grasp him, can keep him close or pull him down beside Jonny. 

When he returns he has two glasses of water in his hands, clear and translucent–not the pineapple gin or whatever Patrick usually prefers. It’s cool and fresh and purifying in a way that allows Jonny to breathe more freely, to reach out for him, to pull him down and against his body. 

It is too hot to have someone close, skin to skin. Too sticky to have someone pressed against him. But the pressure on his chest is too much, too painful to let Patrick go, to not feel him, or have him. 

Jonny can see that his behaviour scares Patrick, that his grip is too tight and his kisses too hard, when they tumble from the hammock onto the wooden porch and he plasters his body all over Patrick’s, not even trying to keep his full weight from pressing down on him. He can see Patrick’s eyes widen, the shock and the pain when he hits the floor.  
But Jonny doesn’t give him any time to adjust, or prepare, he yanks at the shorts, pulls them down and over Patrick’s legs before he folds them open and reveals Patrick’s sweet sweet hole. 

“Jonny, we’re–” 

He shakes his head. Doesn’t care. Doesn’t care at all, when Patrick blinks up at him and then closes his eyes as if–as if he’s okay with whatever Jonny wants from him today. As if he’s okay with Jonny taking whatever he needs. 

They fuck on the porch, only separated from the beach with the wooden railing. It’s nighttime but it’s also Koh Tao, there are people out at the beach all the time. 

But Jonny doesn’t care, doesn’t even think about caring when Patrick gives him that precious gift. 

It’s the first time they fuck without lube, without a condom (there is no time, he can’t let him go; not even for one second) and even though he licks Patrick thoroughly, caresses and fingers him for minutes and hours until he’s sobbing from pleasure, he still stiffens and holds his breath, his fingers clawing into Jonny’s arms painfully, before he finally opens his legs wider and allows Jonny to drive in. 

It’s good. It’s better than good. It’s perfect. 

Because Patrick is perfect. So trusting, so open, so vulnerable underneath him, around him. The way he moans and sighs Jonny’s name is poetry. The way he folds his legs around Jonny to pull him closer is mind blowing. The way he fucks himself on Jonny’s cock, gives everything is heaven. 

Jonny wants to do this for the rest of his life. Needs this. Like air. His whole body feels on fire with this intense need that doesn’t vanish after he’s come inside Patrick and tastes every inch of Patrick’s skin, licks every drop of Patrick’s cum from his stomach and bites soft red marks into Patrick’s chest. Bites down softly, then a bit harder and harder until Patrick flinches underneath, until Jonny sees tears gathering in the corners of Patrick’s eyes, his teeth sunk deeply into his wonderful lower lip to prevent himself from making a sound. 

With a bang of shame he stops. He never wanted to hurt Patrick. He just...couldn’t help himself. Felt as if he had no control; over himself and over this crazy fiery want inside him. 

And he has never wanted anyone or anything else that much in his whole life, outside of escaping his little hometown and being free. 

Later–when they have caught their breath–Jonny helps him up, brushes the beginning of tears away with his thumbs, kisses the soft lips, feels them warm under his tongue. He wants to apologize, wants Patrick to understand that he regrets the way he hurt him, to make it better. But when he opens his mouth, Patrick shakes his head and stops him with a smile: soothing and calming and so very sweet. Then he leans against Jonny for a few seconds, chest against chest, heartbeats almost in sync--before he drags Jonny back into the bedroom, sweatier and needier than ever before. 

Letting Patrick part from him is not an option, so Jonny drapes Patrick’s pliant and exhausted body over his own, curls his arms around Patrick’s back, folds his legs over Patrick’s calves, buries his face in Patrick’s neck, his nose in the blond hair. Lets himself be pressed into the mattress, secured and anchored by the comforting weight over him. 

Patrick is everywhere. In his house, on his clothes. On his skin. In his arms. In his mouth. In his memories. That should not even be memories because this is not over yet. _They_ are not over yet. 

__

Except they are. 

Because when he comes home the following evening Patrick is gone. 

So completely that it’s like he’s never even been here. Like Jonny’s mind made him up. 

There is no smell of pasta or paella when he gets home, no flip flops on the foot mat, no books scattered on the kitchen table. There are no bare feet on the kitchen tiles, no blond hair in the bathroom sink, no outdated dance music blaring from weak iPhone speakers. There is no warm fleeting kiss, no honey sweet dimpled smile, no pliant body that he can pull against him at night. 

Jonny doesn’t sleep in his bed this night. Can’t sleep in the sheets that still hold the scent of saltwater and soap and pineapples, that conjures images of blue eyes, lightly tanned skin and faded curls. Can’t stand that amount of space and freedom he suddenly has, when he turns over. The coldness that spreads in his veins and can’t be cured by the blanket that he pulls over him. 

So he sits on the porch–not in the hammock because this is another one of Patrick’s favorite places in his apartment. He sits on the steps and drinks. 

Thinks that he should be glad that Patrick that they had no future anyway because Jonny doesn’t do relationships. That Jonny adores his freedom and prefers it over any relationship he ever had. Remembers that Patrick left without a word of goodbye and gratefulness–as if they didn’t share his apartment in the last two weeks, didn’t have a good thing together.

Focuses on that anger, because focusing on the disappointment and the hurt makes him want to curl up into a small ball, makes his stomach convulse and his chest so tight that he has trouble breathing.  
__

Picking up his previous rhythm is easy: Jonny gets up in the morning, works out and fixes his coffee in the silence of his apartment. He works in his shop without looking up at every customer that enters (without hoping to see silly hawaiian shirts or blond curls) until he can close up and go back home that is not his home anymore. Then he sits in the darkness of his porch, watches the couples that walk by, wonders if they have come together, if they have just met here, if they are happy or about to break up soon. 

He starts reading again to busy his mind, to fill his time, to distract his heart from feeling empty and lonely. 

He used to _like_ lonely. 

He used to be scared of the idea of sharing his life. 

Now he’s scared about not sharing his life. 

__

Sometimes he gets his cellphone out, opens the contacts, fingers flipping through the names until they hover above Patrick’s name, making them tremble, and he has to put the phone away before he presses the call button. It’s useless. 

One time he does it. Presses down, but ends the call without a connection. It’s pointless.

He deletes the contact after this. 

Sometimes he scrolls through their messages, at the silly things Patrick had texted him to make him chuckle at work, the random pictures and observations Patrick sent from his walks to the grocery store, all the little fragments of his smart and precious mind.

Jonny wants to delete them, too. Finger hovering over the button for minutes, heart beating painfully in his throat until he drops the phone and stands up and leaves the house. Runs until he’s covered in sweat, his lungs are bursting and he can tell himself that the tears are from the exhaustion. 

He can’t delete the conversation. 

He can’t delete the last proof that Patrick was real once. 

__

Sometimes he thinks about what could have been, if he went after Patrick. If he went to the hostel Patrick had stayed in before he moved in with Jonny. If Jonny searched for him. 

_If he found him. Stopped him from leaving_. 

But then he remembers that Patrick disappeared on him. Sneaked out of his apartment and hurt him. That Patrick didn’t want him. Didn’t even want him enough to bother. 

__

Sometimes he wakes up from a dream of Patrick still being with him, sleeping right next to him (just far away enough that they don’t touch). A dream that felt so real that he doesn’t dare to open his eyes, too afraid to chase it away, wanting nothing but fall asleep again and have the same dream over and over. 

And when that’s impossible then Jonny lies there, pretending the reality of his life without Patrick is the nightmare he just escaped and when he’d opened his eyes and reached over he could see and feel Patrick beside him, warm and calm and his. 

__

It’s almost two months later when he finds the letter. Written on the back of a paper full of equations and logarithms, hastily scribbled compared to the clean, neat letters and numbers on the other side. Folded twice and tucked away in Patrick’s copy of “The Sound and the Fury”, that is lying in the gap between the couch and the wall. 

Jonny doesn’t know if Patrick put it there for him to find it. Or if it was an accident. If the book fell out of Patrick’s backpack and he was never supposed to read these words. 

But he finds them and he reads them and when he’s finished, he reads them again. And again.

In the end he can’t say how many times he’s read the words, enough to know them by heart. But not enough that they lose their impact. That they stop making him feel nauseous and weak and desperate. Not enough to stop him from reading them again. 

Not enough to stop his heart from breaking. . 

It’s long after midnight when he finally gets up from the floor where he’d sunken down to read, cold and shivering, hungry and thirsty for something that no food or water could satisfy. Starving and needy for someone who is probably 10000 miles and 12 hours away. 

For someone who has maybe already forgotten or given up on him. Someone who had hurt Jonny more than he ever thought was possible and whom he had hurt just as much. Someone he wanted more than anything and anyone ever before, that Jonny pushed him away to save his own heart from breaking that he actually broke it in the process. 

__

_~~Dear~~ Jonny, _

_I’m sorry that I have to leave like this. Believe me it’s not the way I want to. I’d love to stay until tomorrow and then say goodbye and thank you for letting me to stay ~~with you~~. and for being so kind to give me not only a place to sleep but also a home. _

_~~But I don’t~~ _

_I_ can’t _stay and wait until you get home. Because we would have dinner and then we would have sex and you would hold me and we would fall asleep together. This sounds so boring but to it’s actually everything I want. And probably nothing that you want. Which is...okay. We’ve never talked about what we’re doing here, what we are or what we want. You’ve never made any promises that you didn’t keep._

_But you made it so easy to fall in love with you. There’s the way your eyes follow me around the room, attentive and appreciating. There’s the way you smile, fond and filled with affection. And the way you talk to me and touch me...Everything about you is fascinating and every day I’ve spent with you made me fall for you even more._

_That’s the reason why I have to leave right now. I’ve packed up my stuff spread out in your house as if it belongs there. I’m leaving this little space that has become so familiar to me and that I would have never left if it weren’t for you._

_Not that you asked me to leave you._

_But you didn’t ask me to stay. And that was even more painful. That I could see it in your eyes, and yet...you didn’t want me enough to overcome that fear and that pride to ask me. I’m sorry that I can’t stay for another night and let you fuck me like I’m the only thing you want and need._

_So I’m leaving right now. To protect my dignity and my heart._

_Maybe it’s probably too late for that, for both of them._

_Yet, since I never said it before ~~and I’ll probably never will~~ ; I’ve fallen in love with you and if you’d asked me to stay I would have. Forever. _

_Take care_

__

This time Jonny presses the call button after he opened the chat with the nameless US phone number. 

This time he doesn’t end the call before it connects. 

This time he waits until someone picks up and until he can hear the waiting silence and the almost soundless breathing. 

Never before was he more nervous. Never before was he more anxious. Not when he shouldered his backpack and heard the soft click of his parents’ front door without leaving any note. Not when he withdraw all the money from his Canadian savings account and boarded the plane to the other side of the world where nobody knew him and he didn’t know anybody. Not even when he handed over all the money he had ever earned and got the key for his little shop. 

But never before has it been more important. And more worth it. 

__

The end.

Thank you for reading ♥


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